Week Ten - Nov 5-Nov 9, 2012

Another good week!

There are still so many holes in my student's education that I'm having to spend A LOT of time on remedial math :(

Monday was more or less another housekeeping day.  We went over homework, passed out papers, etc.  The students are doing really good about watching their videos lately as they've been having one almost every night.

We're learning about Fractions right now and adding/subtracting fractions so on Tuesday I laid out 81 pieces of candy on the floor (I did not tell them how many pieces), and a few other small items (pencils and such).  I told them to split into groups and then they had to categorize the items on the floor however they wanted writing each category as a fraction.  They weren't allowed to send more than one person up to the floor to count items.  They also couldn't bring their paper to the floor.  So they had to be really creative about how they went about this.  Some groups came up with really creative categorization while some just did like "chocolate" and "not chocolate" grouping.  We discussed how you need to add each fraction and hopefully end up with 81/81 to show that that equals a whole and that you included all the information!  It was a lot of fun for the kids.

I had a sub later that week but it worked perfectly because he showed a video, my kids took a quiz, and I got to Skype in to my class and review the quiz!

We also read the book this week "The Dot" by Peter Reynolds.  I LOVE this book.  I recently heard about it from Andrea Keller @akbusybees and we read it, discussed creativity and not quitting and I assigned students the task of creating their own "dot".  The kids did AMAZING!  I've posted several pictures on my twitter account (@TechNinjaTodd).  My kids are gonna hang them around the school so the other grade levels can view our "Dot Art Gallery".  I loved this assignment.  Yes, it had nothing at all to do with math, but it was so much fun and really allowed my students to show their creativity.  So much fun!

I also tried a new idea this week.  After giving my quiz on Thursday I took the students who did really well on it and sent them to other grade levels to be "helpers" while I worked with a small group.  I had emailed the whole staff earlier in the week asking who would like volunteer kids in their room as helps.  Teachers sent me how many they wanted and times, and I sent them kids all day Friday so I could work with smaller groups of students.  It worked out SO well, I will def be doing this every Friday!

One more week til Thanksgiving!  Oh and on a side note, every 5th grader will be getting a Verizon enabled iPhone 4 NEXT WEEK!!  From the $100,000 flip grant I was awarded.  I can't wait til the kids get those in their hands.  And no they won't be able to text or call, just access internet and apps!